


Fire and Salt

by ProdigySorcerer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4172565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProdigySorcerer/pseuds/ProdigySorcerer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of my Stannis/Mellisandre one-ofs and small fics</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. History and Religion I (Modern AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was initially posted on tumblr, but I'm cleaning up the two chapters migrating them here and see if I can add more interesting chapters to this AU.

They were just the two of them in the teachers lounge, alone for about two hours so Melisandre didn’t know if he had thought long and hard on the question or if it was a spur of the moment thing:

“Did you change your name ?” Stannis said breaking the silence.

“Huh ?” came her reply, the history professor was not one to engage in idle conversation, that was what stunned her.

“You’re a priestess of R'hllor ... ” at least somebody noticed that without jumping on her case for proselytizing “ you are from Ashai ...” yes her accent was mocked by some of her more heathenish students “and your name is Melisandre.” Stannis finished as if delivering the final evidence which in a murder trial.

“Yes, thank you for giving me a short review of my own life, now what is your point ?” she asked a bit peeved in return.

“I thought it too much of a coincidence, so that why I asked if you knowingly changed your name when you converted.”

“The name 'Melisandre' doesn’t have any special significance in the theology of the Lord of Light.” Melisandre replied smiling, maybe this discussion would allow her to preach the red gospel to Stannis for a bit.

“She was one of the most influential Red Priestess who lived.” Stannis replied with a definitive tone as if he had some royal prerogative to end the discussion at that moment and be in the right.

“This Melisandre never authored a book which was included in canon ... this I can assure you, nor do I remember her writing any prayers or hymns… ” Melisandre began but Stannis seemed to have second thoughts about starting this discussion with her and retreated to grading his papers.

Still this odd interaction continued to eat at her, distracting her through the day until she could get home and begin to comb her collection of books and online resources for any mention of Melisandre yet she couldn’t find a trace, it infuriated her as she was a professor of religious studies she should have been aware of a influential priestess who happened to share her religion,name and place of birth.

She considered briefly if Stannis was just fucking with her, but she quickly cast that thought aside, from what she knew of the strict man his idea of humour wouldn’t include sending her on a wild goose chase.

It then struck her just as she had given up and was making some tea, Baratheon was a history professor so this Melisandre if she had existed was probably influential in a secular way and would be mentioned in his field not necessarily in hers. 

Armed with this new knowledge and better search terms she finally found her mark, the first hit was a small very small history blog dedicated to a Westerosi king Stannis Baratheon.

“You’ve got to be kidding me … ” Melisandre said aloud as she read the first paragraph about the so called "True King of Westeross" reading on and cross-referencing with Maesterpida she learned that the historic Stannis had been a pretender to the Iron Throne having fought in some long ago war called “The War of Five Kings” which happened just before the last long winter.

The blog had turned up when searching the historical Melisandre was due to a small section discussing the king’s religion with him having been a early convert to the Red God, yet Melisandre was surprised at this even to this day the Red Faith still had little hold in Westeros, this convert king must have failed spectacularly in spreading the faith if he was never acknowledged by the Red Priests from Essos.

Continuing to read she found the cause for this, the Melisandre of old had hailed the would be king as Azhor Ahai, such a bold move could only result in the Essosian branch of the faith purging her from any documents when the pretender failed to sit on the throne and with his warmongering must have pushed the Westerosi even more into the arms of the Seven and the Old Gods.

Still the blog was very rigorously written having links to other more harder to find sources which proved Melisandre’s existence and even gave much more juicy details about her, most interestingly a physical description.

“Well well my king, let’s see if I can pull together an all red outfit for tomorrow and we shall see if you can handle the past you’ve dug up …” Melisandre said with a mischievous glint in her eyes, a wicked smile fixed on her lovely face as she schemed how to best tease her Stannis when they’d meet again.


	2. History and Religion II (Modern AU)

Stannis was eating his lunch alone, not that it mattered to him besides Davos or one of his brothers once in a blue moon, he didn’t really care for chatter when he could be eating more efficiently and thus have more time for planning his lectures.

Unfortunately he was occupying a table in the professor’s cantina all by himself thus he was left totally defenceless when Melisandre sauntered up to him and asked if she could sit.

“There’s nothing stopping you.” he replied coldly, Stannis wanted to invent some excuse but the truth was obvious.

“I humbly thank my king for accepting me at his side.” the red woman said with a theatrical bow and proceeded to position herself to Stannis’s right just close enough to breach his personal space, but not close enough that he could make a formal complaint.

Stannis then really took a good look at her, usually she’d wear a single red item of clothing as he knew that the followers of the Red God were required, now she was clad in red silk head to toe and showing a dangerous amount of cleavage.

He wanted to bring that to her attention that as per the internal rules she was dressed inadequately but then he remembered Robert had practically torn out those rules out when he got into power at their university.

Still something struck him, the unusual wardrobe, searching him out, the theatrics, the reference to a king.

“You’ve been reading up on the historical Melisandre I see.” he said as a small gloat since he had apparently managed to give another member of the faculty homework.

“Ah yes and I’m so glad I did, how else could I have known I was sharing coffee and doughnuts in between lectures with a member of the royal family.” the red woman said with false awe.

“I’m not daft woman to think myself a descendant of the rightful king of Westeros ..." he consciously started to use his lecturer tone or as he preffered to call it his battle commander tone " after the last long winter there came a need for the commoners to adopt family names. And since the power of the Great Houses was pretty much broken many commoners adopted their names as a mockery or out of lack of ideas some even out of loyalty … ”

“Aww no throne for Stannis ?” Melisandre coed mockingly

“ … thus tracing back my name we can only go as far as to prove a Storm Lands ancestry.” Stannis finished choosing to completely ignore her taunts.

“But seriously rightful king ? Wasn't that Jeffrey ? " Stannis tried to suppress his shudder " Maybe I should be the one interrogating you about whether you changed your legal name out of fan boy-ish worship.”

Stannis just looked at her for the longest time grinding his teeth before he answered:

“It’s the name my father picked for me, it is my duty to bear it.”

“Your father must be where you got your passion for history from, I’d imagine most men if they knew a Baratheon from that era it would be Robert … oh” Melisandre stopped herself as it just hit her what the dean's , Stannis's brother, name was.

Stannis could almost see the wheels of her mind working, he was in truth tempted to fill her in on even more of the coincidences which seemed to rule his life but it was not her business or right to know.

How his father had named his first born son Robert after the king, next came another son and Stannis was decided for him, his parents weren’t even trying when the surprise third child came and against all odds it was again a boy.

It had always been something of a in-joke among the brothers, Robert was beloved by the ladies and doing well in military school Stannis himself was serious and dutiful and eyeing the Naval Academy and then Renly shocked everyone by coming out of the closet.

There had been some drama, but the family moved on and accepted him. Yet Robert decided to not try for a commission almost as if he was afraid he would wind up leading a coup, Stannis similarly chose a non-ship related careerer ultimately deciding to go into academia specifically history.

It seemed as it was just random chance with Renly and all their names, but then Robert somehow found himself entangled with the crazy chemistry professor, now Cersei Baratheon her maiden name had been Lannister and she was very proud of her origin in the Westerlands, the less he thought about her twin brother and Robert's father-in-law the better as he did not need to get a head-ache.

Stannis’s ex-wife again continued the trend by happening to have the very specific name of Selyse.

What really spooked them both was Cersei’s bloody determination to name her and Robert’s first child Joffrey, on Stannis’s advice Robert had even done some discreet tests but the boy was his, and in his own marriage Selyse never really understood why was so afraid of their daughter getting grayscale in this day and age.

Mellisandre was now starring at him, he must have drifted off thinking about the uncanny parallels which seemed to make up his life and he had not even scratched the surface.

“So what do you think of Mellisandre’s claims that Stannis First of His Name, was Azhor Ahai reborn ?” he tried to change the subject.

“Well of course they were completely false and heretical … ” she said in a lively tone “ the world we live in is the hell, one just one hell not seven, if Azhor Ahai had been reborn hundreds of years ago he would have ended this world and we would be living in paradise right now.”

“Aha” Stannis nodded

“Although I do not blame her it is difficult to be objective about loved ones and tempting to think that the world does revolve around them.”

“You’re wrong here, Mellisandre was just a councillor for the king, he had already been married when he converted to a certain Selyse of House Florent. ”

The two professors and academics then proceeded to use their remaining free time in their busy schedules to bicker about the sex lives of people dead for centuries.

Stannis when at the end of the day he returned to his cold empty apartment the decided he still had energy and proceeded to add a section to his blog about king Stannis the First of His Name dispelling the vile treasonous rumours that he and Mellisandre of Ashai were lovers.

“Hm all this work and my stats show barely anyone reads this blog ... do I have Melisandre's e-mail ? ... it would do her some good to learn some real history.” Stannis said out loud after finishing the post


	3. History and Religion III (Modern AU)

His damned smarphone released a annoying alert to signal he had just received a damn mail, and even worse he wasn’t sure if it was the University phone and the mail was the result of some tedious meeting or if it was his personal phone and it was something potentially important.

Robert sighed and fished it out of his pocket, again damning himself for setting “The bear and the maiden fair” as his ringtone for the both of them, quickly seeing that it was Stannis and he apparently needed the personal e-mail of the religious studies teacher.

After a short session of texting which left Robert bewildered but at the same time happy Stannis was showing any personal interest whatsoever in a woman, he got to work on finding that e-mail.

And it had to be her personal e-mail, his little brother insisted this wasn’t work related so using her university mail would be “against regulations” and while Robert enjoyed keeping a friendly atmosphere with his faculty and thus had the contacts for a large number of them Melisandre was not among them.

This called for desperate measures ...

“Honey ... do you have that Melisandre’s chick’s e-mail or number ?” he began bluntly after he’d found Cersei working on her laptop in the living room.

A blond eyebrow shot up immediately and while her face remained serene Cersei’s eyes immediately took Robert back to his undergrad work studying lions in the Westerlands.

“It’s not for me ... ” he soldiered on “ Stannis’s the one who wants to bone her.” he laid it our bare.

“Come on Robert you can do better than this.” her tone was honey but using his husband sense Robert knew he was skating on this ice thus he produced the whole convo of messages from his phone.

“Have the seven hells frozen over and I missed it on the news ? Also why would I have Melisandre’s number ?”

“I saw you two skulking about, just before she gave you that very favourable review in the commission for the ‘Tyrell Incident’, and then you paid back the favour just a few weeks later during the Greyjoy investigation.”

“That’s how you play the game darling ... ” 

“Meh, I’m the dean I could have just thrown the Tyrell complaints out and we’d been done with it, no need for that cape and dagger shit.” he replied unintentionally inflating his chest.

“A bold move, but it would have left us much more exposed in the long run ... none the less any outcome from this overture of Stannis will be interesting.” she said with a downright demonic smile as she started searching for the e-mail.

“Stannis mentioned a blog ... ” Cersei said idly while she was trying to find it.

“It’s just his opening, Stan is a nerd at heart he’ll try to woe her with his brain.” Robert said in a exaggerated manner as to downplay the blog.

“Robert, your tell is showing ” she said looking up.

“What tell ? This isn’t poker woman, there’s nothing more to it.”

“Now you’re getting defensive ... ”

“It’s nothing ... ”

“Don’t think I can’t do a damn google search for Stannis’s name or get Tyrion to get his IP and cross-reference ...” 

“Fine, fine the thing is ... ” Robert continued to try and downplay it “Stannis is sort of obsessed with some third rate king who shares his name ok ? It’s honestly embarrassing so excuse me for trying to protect what little faculty lounge cred my brother still has.”

Cersei’s showed no sign of this being enough but before she could speak Robert went to their bookcase and retrieved a tome.

“Here, it’s my copy of his phd thesis, you can read it yourself and see how dreadfully boring it is.” Robert said as he handed it over praying to the gods Stannis’s style was dry enough so that his wife would put it down before she saw something.

The gods were not with Robert on that day though, as Cersei poured over the book, constantly skipping from chapter back to the content table and to another chapter, part of him was relieved while he did not obsess over these things as Stannis he knew it was damned strange and now he would have another person’s take on it.

“Robert, what’s the chances for twins ? ” Cersei finally asked.

“1.5 out of 100 for humans.” he replied automatically when he’d decided not to try and become a officer in the army Robert found himself without too many options, he liked hunting but that wasn’t really a career so he decided biology was the next best thing.

“And for dwarfism ?”

“For parents who don’t suffer of dwarfism themselves it’s about 1 out of 10,000 ... ”

“And for all three children of a couple to be male ?” she continued

“That’s a 1 out of 2 repeated three times ... the odds are 1 out of 8”

“Ok and all of these in the same relative time frame, with the twins having a dwarf brother and the three brothers ?”

“Aren’t fractions your domain ? How else can you brew that wildfire without it exploding ?” he was a bit pissed they both knew she had to be better at math then him if only due to the fact she taught chemistry.

“Just factoring in the dwarfism and the twins make it astronomically low ... and the other things from this time period my father’s name being Tiwyn, him and mom having been cousins, uncle Kevan ... ”

“Sure it’s about your family it always is ” Robert couldn’t help himself from declaring, the secret was out, it was apparently a big deal and it was going to be a Long Night.


End file.
